Island in the Sky
Island in the sky Guided by a catalog of planets found on an alien spaceship, the Jupiter 2 has located a habitable planet and entered orbit around it. John feels that they should land on the planet in order to make needed repairs to the exterior of the ship with gravity and an atmosphere. Maureen feels that landing is too dangerous. To determine whether the planet is safe, John decides to send the ship's environmental control robot down to the surface to investigate. John and the other members of the crew still believe that the robot's destructive rampage was due to a malfunction and are unaware of Dr. Smith's malicious programming. Thus, Smith is easily able to convince John that the robot is still too unreliable to be trusted with the mission. John determines to use wrist mounted parajets to descend to the surface himself, unaware that the parajets have been sabotaged by Dr. Smith. Dismayed by John's continued determination to reach Alpha Centauri, Smith is determined to seize control of the expedition himself to secure his return to Earth. He plans to use his control over the robot to do this. John Robinson departs from the spacecraft in his spacesuit, and fires his parajet thrusters to leave orbit. As he approaches the surface he reports seeing vegetation in a crater. Then the parajets malfunction and all contact with John is lost. On the remote chance that John got the parajets to work before impact, John and Maureen prepare the ship for a landing in the vicinity of John's disappearance. As they work at the control station, they are confronted by Dr. Smith and the robot. Smith announces that he is taking control of the expedition. To demonstrate his strength, he asks the robot to crush a space helmet designed to withstand thousands of pounds of pressure, a task which the robot easily accomplishes. Dr. Smith orders Don and Maureen to abandon John and leave orbit. Despite the fact that the ship is lost, Smith somehow believes that a return to Earth is possible. Don uses his pilot skills to outwit Smith. Pretending to comply with Smith's order, he throws the ship into a violent maneuver which knocks Smith from his feet and allows Don to gain a strangle hold on Smith's neck. Easing his vice grip on the terrified Smith's neck, Don orders Smith to sent the robot back to the lower deck. Don threatens to kill Smith unless he complies. Smith complies and Don throws him into a freezing tube. Just before the tube is activated and Smith is placed in suspended animation, he desperately blurts out something about the Jupiter's rockets. Neither Don nor Maureen listen. John and Maureen continue with their plans to land the ship. On the lower deck, the children and Maureen strap into their acceleration couches for landing. Although portrayed as having one in earlier episodes, the control panel on the upper deck has no couch associated with it and Don tries to control the ship while standing (the Jupiter was intended to function as an automated ship and this is perhaps why no couch is portrayed in this episode). When the ship tosses about violently, Don is forced to ride out the landing in a freezing tube. Due to Smith's sabotage of the rockets, the ship crash lands on its belly. Revived from suspended animation, Don and the Robinsons gaze out the window at the bleak landscape of the alien planet on which they have crashed. Maureen wonders whether the atmosphere of the planet might be poisonous. They want to send the robot out to investigate, but believe it to still be malfunctioning. Will demonstrates that he is able to control the robot by imitating Dr. Smith's voice (Hmmm... isn't this a big clue about what's going on). Will orders the robot to go outside an make an environmental analysis. The robot lumbers out the hatch and tests the atmosphere and soil. It returns with a detailed report ending with the conclusion that the environment is capable of sustaining human life. Don immediately asks the other to help him assemble the Chariot, the expeditions planetary roving vehicle. They soon set out in the Chariot in search of John, or of his remains. The Chariots instruments eventually pick up the signal of a life form, which they believe to be John. Walking through a stand of alien vegetation, Don approaches what he believes to be the source of the signal. It turns out to be an alien chimpanzee-like animal, which makes the sound 'bloop, bloop'. Penny adopts it as a pet and names it 'Debbie'. The search continues, and eventually John is found at the bottom of a nearby pit, stunned, but uninjured. He was able to restore parajet function at the last moment before impact. Meanwhile the robot has inexplicably wandered off from the group. Dr. Smith has programmed him to check on his safety at hourly intervals and the robot is obeying this programming rather than the commands given to it by the Robinsons. The robot returns to the Jupiter 2 and revives Smith from suspended animation. During their return to the Jupiter, the Chariot encounters an electrical tumbleweed lifeform that disables it. The Robinsons walk the short remaining distance back to the Jupiter 2. When they return they find Smith and the robot and expect trouble. Instead, Smith is conciliatory and apologizes for his earlier behavior. Although Don remains wary, John Robinson does not punish Smith or return him to suspended animation. The expedition's troublemaker remains at large. While Smith tries to regain the trust of the Robinsons, he secretly continues his nefarious scheme to seize control of the ship. He orders the robot to kill anyone it finds alone. Smith notes that death by electrical discharge from the robot's electrical weapon can easily be confused with metabolic failure due to unknown substances in the atmosphere. Only Major West is to be left alive because he is needed to pilot the ship back to Earth. Meanwhile, to demonstrate his new loyalty to the Robinsons, Smith warns them of the danger that the composition of the planet's atmosphere might change at night. He offers to send out the robot to make another atmospheric analysis. Against the orders of his father, Will Robinson has ventured out the the Chariot alone at night. He wants to test his plan to repair it, and surprise his parents with a working Chariot. At the Chariot, he is confronted by the robot, who apparently lacks any capacity for sneakiness. While still far away from Will the robot announces its murderous intentions and demonstrates its abilities with a pyrotechnic display of electrical discharges. The frightened boy takes refuge on top of the Chariot and calls on his radiophone for help. To be continued next week, Same time, Same channel... Some notes on scientific accuracy The main item for comment in this episode are the parajets, small wrist mounted rockets that supposedly brake John Robinson from orbital speed and allowed him to fly over a planetary surface. Special effects being what they were at the time, we don't actually get to see this. When John is near the surface we just hear his voice on the radio. It's a good thing, because it's really hard to imagine someone flying with rockets mounted on their wrists. I don't even much need to remark on the lack of room for the needed fuel for this device. Real jetpacks developed in the '60's could only fly a few minutes due to fuel limitations and they had big fuel tanks on the wearers back. John also had no heat shield to protect himself from the heating due to atmospheric friction when entering a planetary atmosphere. As wild as it sounds, NASA actually did develop an orbital bailout scheme that would have allowed a real astronaut to do something like what John Robinson did in this episode. It was called MOOSE (Manned Orbital Operations Safety Equipment) and was small enough to fit into a suitcase. It consisted of a rocket motor to de-orbit the astronaut and an inflatable shelter to be filled with polyurethane foam. The shelter served as a heat shield during atmospheric reentry and as a cushion on landing. A parachute, radio transmitter, and survival kit completed the device. Of course, it wouldn't have provided something that John Robinson needed: a way to return to the Jupiter 2 in orbit. The parajets were supposed to do that too. Yeah, sure... and there are hillbillies, circus masters, and department store clerks out in space too. Another grounds for comment are Don West's and the others conduct around Debbie the bloop. Approaching and picking up a wild animal, even here on Earth, would be a foolhardy thing to do. Approaching an unknown alien wild animal on another planet and picking it up is beyond stupidity. This would be a great way to discover how alien wild animals protect themselves from predators.